Film
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Kirby Dick hires a real private investigator to unmask the anonymous board that decides which films get slapped with an NC-17 and why, and the result is part detective story, part media-literacy seminar. It's breezy, funny, and genuinely infuriating by the end - a film-nerd conspiracy thriller for anyone who's ever wondered why violence gets a pass but pleasure doesn't.
If you liked this
Bowling for Columbine2002
Michael Moore turns the same interrogative energy on gun culture and media fear-mongering, mixing satire with real dread - the film that proved investigative documentary could be popcorn entertainment.
But Moore's showmanship and stunts can feel manipulative, and his politics may grate if you want cooler-headed analysis.
Super Size Me2004
Morgan Spurlock eats only McDonald's for a month and lets his body become the evidence - a stunt as journalism that's funny until it isn't, and a spiritual cousin to Dick's own detective-agency gambit.
But The premise has been picked apart since release, with some of its numbers disputed; treat it as advocacy, not clinical study.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005
A forensic, occasionally darkly comic unraveling of corporate arrogance and institutional secrecy, told with the same appetite for paper-trail detective work as Dick's film.
But Dense with financial jargon and executive testimony; if accounting scandals don't interest you, the momentum can sag.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
This Is Not a Film2011no page yet
Dick's film treats the MPAA as secretive and unaccountable; this one shows what happens when a government, not a trade body, decides what you're allowed to film at all - the same fight for the right to make images, at existential stakes.
Banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government, Jafar Panahi records a single day in his apartment on a phone and a camera, the footage smuggled out of the country inside a cake. It's what censorship looks like when the stakes aren't a rating but a life.
But Nearly plotless by design and confined to one room; its power depends on knowing what's at stake for Panahi outside the frame.
More like this (8)
Inside Job2010
Charles Ferguson's Oscar-winning breakdown of the 2008 financial crisis shares the same fury at an industry that grades and polices itself with zero outside accountability.
But More sober and lecture-like than Dick's film - less mischief, more spreadsheet.
The Corporation2003
A wide-angle indictment of corporate personhood and secrecy across industries, built from the same talking-heads-plus-outrage architecture that powers Dick's expose.
But At nearly two and a half hours it's a slog, and its scattershot approach covers more ground than it can always land.
Citizenfour2014
Laura Poitras's real-time record of Edward Snowden blowing the whistle shows what it actually looks like when someone risks everything to expose institutional secrecy.
But Quiet, hotel-room tension rather than playful energy; some will find it slow and paranoid.
Blackfish2013
SeaWorld's PR machine gets a forensic takedown, whistleblowers and hidden footage included, and it changed public conversation the way Dick's film changed conversations about ratings.
But Emotionally engineered in ways critics have flagged, and some of its science has been contested since release.
Best Worst Movie2009
A warm, funny look at the cult afterlife of Troll 2, from inside an industry Dick's film treats as opaque and self-serious - a nice palate cleanser after all that outrage.
But Slighter and gentler than the rest of this list, with none of the political teeth.
The Thin Blue Line1988
Errol Morris's landmark documentary proved a film could function as an actual investigation, reopening a murder case - the same faith in the camera as an instrument of justice runs through Dick's work.
But Stylized, moody, and deliberately slow; if you want jokes and momentum, this isn't that.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut1999
It's the joke version of everything Dick argues in earnest - Trey Parker and Matt Stone lived the ratings-board absurdity firsthand and turned their own real MPAA battle into the film's raunchy, self-aware climax.
A profane, gleeful cartoon musical that went to war with the MPAA over its own rating and turned the fight into the plot itself, right down to a literal court case about what a movie's allowed to show.
But Juvenile, filthy, and proud of it; if the documentary's outrage appealed to your seriousness rather than your sense of humor, this will feel like a prank.
Baby Doll1956no page yet
Before the ratings board there was religious and civic morality policing, and Baby Doll is the clearest case of a studio film crushed by exactly the kind of unaccountable moral panel Dick's documentary spends its runtime unmasking.
Kazan's steamy Southern gothic was condemned from the pulpit by the Catholic Legion of Decency and picketed outside theaters, buried decades before the MPAA even existed - proof this fight is far older than one rating board.
But Black-and-white, stagey, and mild by modern standards; the outrage it once caused will seem almost quaint now.
People
Cast
Kimberly PeirceSelf - Director of 'Boys Don't Cry'- Jon LewisSelf - Author of 'Hollywood v. Hardcore'
- David AnsenSelf - Film Critic at 'Newsweek'
- Martin GarbusSelf - First Amendment Attorney
Wayne KramerSelf - Director of 'The Cooler'- Paul DergarabedianSelf - Box Office Analyst
Kevin SmithSelf - Director of 'Clerks' and 'Jersey Girl'
John WatersSelf - Director of 'A Dirty Shame'
Matt StoneSelf - Producer of 'South Park' and 'Team America'- Richard HeffnerSelf - Former Rating Board Chairman
- Bingham RaySelf - Co-Founder of October Films
- Joel FedermanSelf - Author of 'Media Ratings'
Directing
- Kirby DickDirector
Writing
- Eddie SchmidtWriter
- Kirby DickWriter
- Matt PattersonWriter
Production
- Eddie SchmidtProducer
Recommended by
Hail Satan?, Fahrenheit 451, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut